"2-D Blacktop" was a pretty lame season premiere. I liked the math/geometry gags and the workings of the 2D world, but the rest was pretty bad. I gather it was parodying those Fast and Furious movies, but I've never seen those. I'm not sure it would've worked any better for me if I had.

"Fry and Leela's Big Fling" was a lot better. It was more character-driven rather than just gag-driven like "2-D," but it had some good gags and puns on the simian planet ("Christopher Colobus" -- ha!).

I can't remember, in what earlier episode did the Orangu-tan (sp?) professor appear? I clearly remember Gunter, but the great ape escapes me. Quite a few "call-backs" to various alien animals in that second episode.

I agree "2-D Blacktop" was a bit lame and the 2-D world wasn't as interesting as I had hoped it would be. However, I did love the Doctor Who reference (The Professor called the Planet Express ship "Bessie").

"Fry and Leela's Big Fling" was indeed a lot better with two fun stories that converged in an amusing way, albeit predictably even without the synopsis spoiling the twist. Much to my surprise, I actually enjoyed Gunther's return (as well as Dr. Banjoy's), although it's too bad Gunther and Fry didn't face off (and Fry's sudden mention of Gunther at the right time was a little forced). The Planet of the Simians was full of great gags and I loved the trip to the zoo. Seeing The Bone Vampires ("Fry Am the Egg Man") and the Cylclophage ("Rebirth") again was pretty cool and their appearance reminded me of one of my childhood favorite books, Mercer Mayer's Professor Wormbog in Search for the Zipperump-a-Zooa. Additionally, it was good to see the Fry and Leela relationship get some good attention and even the sudden appearance of Sean the never-before-seen ex-boyfriend worked rather well.

It's too bad the 2D world didn't reference Flatland. One of the things I like about Futurama is the literacy, and scientific literacy, of the humor. But they didn't really spend much time there anyway. It was a mild episode, but not bad, with a lot of good gags, from the tesseract in the engine to "Nobody calls me professor!"

I do agree, though, that the second episode was funnier, if only for the ending-- they arrive to save Fry and Leela just in time for them to leave anyway. The zoo plot was a nice call out to Twilight Zone. And I noticed that Leela was wearing those same "hooter hammocks" in the old picture with Sean.

But it did. There was the "Bonneville Salt Flatlands" near the end -- a reference to both Flatland and the Bonneville Salt Flats, a popular location for testing super-fast vehicles and breaking land speed records. And really, the whole "Flatbush" portion of the story implicitly owed a lot to Edwin Abbott.

I though 2-D Blacktop was ok. But I did enjoy Fry and Leela's Big Fling a lot more. We got some pretty good gags, especially on the Primate Planet. I especially got a kick out of seeing Gunter again, I've always enjoyed his original episode. I also really liked getting an episode that dealt so much with the Fry/Leela relationship. I've felt for a while now that was practically being ignore, so it was nice to see an episode that had a whole plot line focused solely on their relationship.

I also really liked getting an episode that dealt so much with the Fry/Leela relationship. I've felt for a while now that was practically being ignore, so it was nice to see an episode that had a whole plot line focused solely on their relationship.

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The writers admittedly ignore it all the time because they don't want their relationship to tie down the stories they could tell. But they had a feeling this would be the very end and started writing more about their relationship.

Nobody seems to have commented on the E.T. parody episode. I didn't much care for it -- too much a parody of a single movie, and it's a movie that I hated. There were some good laughs early on, though. And the conceit that everyone is more impressed with Fry's performance when he isn't actualy there was funny.

I really enjoyed last night's folk-singer episode, though. Lots of funny lines and gags, and it's a genuine science fiction story, a tale where the crisis arises from a future technology and its ramifications. Though it did a nice job setting up the mystery, so it was a while before we realized that. I also like the continuity bit that they're still using the new Planet Express uniforms introduced in an earlier episode.

The one off note is that scripter Ken Keeler chose to use his cartoon counterpart Ben Beeler as the inventor du jour. It would've felt more natural for Professor Farnsworth to be the one giving the sciencey exposition, and being responsible for creating a machine that unleashes terrible havoc. Besides, Beeler was a paleontologist in "Jurassic Bark."